A special thank you goes out to Walt Disney Studios for providing press access and materials for this EXCLUSIVE Interview With Director Bill Condon and Alan Menken of Beauty and the Beast as well as sponsoring my trip and accommodations to the Be Our Guest Event. Opinions expressed are that of my own.
When you are in the presence of Director Bill Condon and Alan Menken (musical genius) you have to take pause. These two individuals have helped shape modern day musical cinema as well as the popular songs in our culture.
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Bill Condon is a celebrated film director and Oscar®-winning screenwriter, he is known for writing the screenplay for the musical “Chicago,” as well as directing “Dreamgirls” and the two-part finale of the blockbuster “Twilight” film series “Breaking Dawn”. Now think of your favorite Disney song and you are most likely hearing an Alan Menken creation. Between “The Little Mermaid,” the original “Beauty and The Beast,” “Aladdin,” “Tangled,” well let’s just say the list goes on and on for this talented song writer and composer.
While covering BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in LA, I got an opportunity to interview both Director Bill Condon and Alan Menken, check out what they had to say below!
What drew you to this story?
Alan Menken recounted, “I was drawn to the story by Disney. Howard Ashman and I were working on the Little Mermaid, it hadn’t been released yet but people were very happy with it and they said how about Beauty and the Beast…as far as what drew me to it I’ve got to go back and credit Howard, when you look at the initial story and how you’re gonna turn it into an animated musical, it was a matter of inventing the enchanted objects and the huge ego for Gaston and his posse of nitwits who praise him. Because of the structure, we needed to put in production numbers and comedy numbers, and it was all those brilliant ideas and Howard was so instrumental in that.”
Bill Conden recalled, “I have to say it was, you (Alan Menken) There’s this movie, this classic, perfect movie that already exists and for me more than anything it was the score, the chance to really roll around in that music and to restage it. Do a new version of it in a live action format, but to especially those songs. It just felt to me like that once in a lifetime opportunity.”
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Are the additional songs brand new?
Alan explained, “They’re brand new, ‘Days in the Sun’, before Bill was on as a director goes back to about 2008. There was discussions about a movie version of Beauty and actually went as far as early script. When I was in London working on Sister Act, Tim was there and I said let’s try, working on a couple of songs. ‘Days in the Sun’, the genesis of that actually began back there as sort of a lullaby moment, but once Bill came aboard then that really got reworked,to be a vehicle of so much back story, and we were threading a lot of story through it. “
He continued, “The other songs I would say, were the song moments we decided at the beginning and some moments we followed through on. The actual execution was two years … you have these threads and you begin to weave with them. I never pull from a trunk, ever.”
How do you work together through this process?
Bill shared, “I was intimidated at our first meeting (with Alan) because here I am talking about the first possible new song and this is a legendary composer but also it’s a property that as we keep saying is perfect on its own so it’s like okay, but Alan is a direct opposite of that. Alan is a man of the theatre, is somebody who craves the dialogue and the collaboration. That’s what it’s about and that became clear. We just started a conversation, it went on for a couple of years.”
Alan added, “Also we’re both professionals. We both have done a lot of work. We know what’s necessary in order to collaborate and there are people who are new to musicals and will try to reinvent the wheel in one direction or another, but we both have been through so much and when you’re a pro you basically arrived at the same place. You know what’s important and you know what needs to get done and you also by the way know the necessity of process. I know that for me to go back to Beauty and the Beast on my own, no way I could do it, I had done it. It’s all about other people coming in and collaborating and for me the director is the boss and it takes such a burden off of me. Now I’m able to be a catalyst which is what I wanna be more than somebody driving the ship. Bill had the burden of actually driving the ship.”
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What was the hardest decision involved with making this film?
Bill explained, “We didn’t take anything out, that’s the thing. You look at the animated film and there’s absolutely nothing missing. There was a song that was originally conceived for the animated film, put into a reissue of the film and put into the Broadway musical called ‘Human Again’, which is a fantastic song and I think one of your favorites (directed towards Alan). That was an early conversation that just felt even in a movie this scale it took two and a half years to do ‘Be Our Guest’ and ‘Human Again’ is even bigger in away and that just became something that we had to sacrifice. Part of the feelings and what happens in ‘Human Again’ got translated really into Days in the Sun which has a very different feel.”
Alan revealed, “‘Human Again’, because of Howard is a brilliant song. It was always problematic, it was a nine minute sequence going through so many sections and so many edits, basically watching the entire coming together of Belle and the Beast, and watching the objects react and going into a scene and coming back to the song. It was always a challenge to get it in. We ended up cutting it down to about six minutes, by the time it got back into the animated movie and then I think it got cut even a little further for the Broadway show. I think in the future maybe we’ll do a whole music called Human Again and make up for it.”
Talk about the challenges of preserving the timeless classic along with integrating new things?
Bill elaborated, “I think again it was always about revealing more, it wasn’t about reinventing. You bring it into the real world and you start to ask questions that didn’t matter in the animated film. How did Belle and Maurice wind up in this village? What happened to her mother? How did the Prince become such a dissolute figure that he was worthy of being cursed? It’s interesting you start asking those questions and you start to bat around what the possible answers are. Then you’re making something different. For me I could only ever really rely on my own kind of reverence for the original film in knowing when you’re changing something or going too far. I hope never to cross that line.”
How did you know that Emma was your Belle?
Bill shared, “Well I suspected it right, just seeing her in Harry Potter. It seemed like that was a perfect kind of connection to a 21st century Belle. Then we met. I was shooting a movie called Mr. Holmes. We met for an hour and the thing that I loved was how much she loved the original movie and how much she wanted to play the part. She came with a whole pile of books, because I was late because I was shooting and she was in the middle of reading, there she was. Then the only question, really became she’s never sung professionally before.”
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He continued, “She needed to answer that question for herself too. She said, ‘You go out and get a script together you can send me’. We made a handshake deal and Emma was gonna go off and make a tape and explore her voice. That was the thing, that kind of scary moment. To me it’s more intimate than taking your clothes off when you first hear somebody sing even in a karaoke session. It’s like that’s the sound that comes out of you? We’ve seen that a few time in movies too, but her voice is so much a continuation of who she is and how she speaks. There was clearly this kind of sweetness to it and clarity to it that made it seem like it was going to be a different Belle, but I was going to be a really satisfying one.”
Alan revealed, “She was a little terrified. I mean no bones about it and we made sure she had her vocal coach. I had Michael Kosarin, my musical director. Bill was actually at the sessions, this is not necessarily the way it always is but it’s so helpful, because she was I think really intimidated by me. Possibly because of me being the composer, I don’t think she wanted to be that vulnerable in front of me so I really hung back in the back of the control room. We also had a guy named Matt Sullivan who is a music supervisor and just gave Emma the space to just find her voice and work on it and she did and Dan was similar. It was new for both of them.”
How did you manage to incorporate all of the animated film and musical details into the live version?
Bill explained, “Well the thing is that it had been conceived as a movie first so there are certain principles, you can’t just stop a movie for a ballad for three minutes. The stories got to be told during the course of a movie number. You can’t do things you can do on stage. That had already been figured out by Alan and Howard and the creations of the original, so that was a useful thing to build on. I think for me in terms of making it different, you take the number of Belle people look at that and say, it’s just the way it was in the animated but actually in the course of that we’re telling some other new stories.”
He continued, “We’re showing the fact that this is a village where only boys go to school or girls do their laundry, and where the village lasses who are so into Gaston resent Belle because their mother has always doted more on Belle than them. Little glimpses, characters who then turn out to play bigger roles, one of them turns out to be Mr. Potts, one of them turns out to be somebody else’s spouse. It was fun to be able to pack as much story into the songs because I think you’d agree that’s when movie songs really work.”
Alan detailed, “What Bill was doing, you could compare it a high wire act. I mean in a sense every choice he makes is one that has to be weighed against the next choice he makes and then also what was there and people’s expectations…My job, as I often liken what I do to being an architect, we take a story and we create structures that can be musicalized and write these songs and we create that structure. I’m not going to live it, the actors are going to live it. The director is going to be the contractor or whatever analogy you wanna give it. It can be lived in so many different ways and I love that. I love when a song or a musical of mine is reconceived as long as you don’t take our numbers and throw hand grenade to it. A structure is a structure but then it’s great when it gets reinvented and that’s been so well done with this movie.”
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How has the impact of your music, impacted you?
Alan shared, “It’s unreal. It gives me more of a sense of what we think of a collective consciousness, that we’re all a part of a collective consciousness. We as artists are conduits for emotion and they really come through us. I mean we shape them and I just feel very blessed honestly,that I’m a vehicle for that. That’s amazing and wonderful, because basically I was a kid who liked to practice the piano and was a nervous kid with an ulcer. I just was a dreamer and then somehow I found that writing songs, composing was where my brain would settle and I just did it and now it has an impact on people like that, I’m just living my life and it’s had that effect, WOW.“
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This is the end to an amazing set of interviews for Beauty and the Beast! Want to see what else the cast had to say about the film? Be sure to check out the EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS of Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, Luke Evans and Josh Gad, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Audra McDonald. Plus, check out all the the fun we had in Los Angeles at the Be Our Guest Event.
ABOUT DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST:
The story and characters audiences know and love come to spectacular life in the live-action adaptation of Disney’s animated classic “Beauty and the Beast,” a stunning, cinematic event celebrating one of the most beloved tales ever told. “Beauty and the Beast” is the fantastic journey of Belle, a bright, beautiful and independent young woman who is taken prisoner by a Beast in his castle. Despite her fears, she befriends the castle’s enchanted staff and learns to look beyond the Beast’s hideous exterior and realize the kind heart of the true Prince within.
The film stars: Emma Watson as Belle; Dan Stevens as the Beast; Luke Evans as Gaston, the handsome, but shallow villager who woos Belle; Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belle’s father; Josh Gad as LeFou, Gaston’s long-suffering aide-de-camp; Ewan McGregor as Lumière, the candelabra; Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, the harpsichord; Audra McDonald as Madame de Garderobe, the wardrobe; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, the feather duster; Hattie Morahan as the enchantress; and Nathan Mack as Chip, the teacup; with Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the mantel clock; and Emma Thompson as the teapot, Mrs. Potts.
Directed by Bill Condon based on the 1991 animated film, “Beauty and the Beast,” the screenplay is written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos and produced by Mandeville Films’ David Hoberman, p.g.a. and Todd Lieberman, p.g.a. with Jeffrey Silver, Thomas Schumacher and Don Hahn serving as executive producers.
Alan Menken, who won two Academy Awards® (Best Original Score and Best Song) for the animated film, provides the score, which includes new recordings of the original songs written by Menken and Howard Ashman, as well as three new songs written by Menken and Tim Rice. Celine Dion will also perform the Original Song called “How Does a Moment Last Forever”.
To learn more, like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST at facebook.com/DisneyBeautyAndTheBeast and Follow on Twitter at twitter.com/beourguest as well as on Instagram at instagram.com/beautyandthebeast. For updates, visit the official website at movies.disney.com/beauty-and-the-beast-2017.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST IS NOW IN THEATRES EVERYWHERE!
Carlee @ FLL
A special thank you goes out the Walt Disney Studios for providing this information and materials about Beauty and the Beast.
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